Saturday, September 13, 2014

When it was
first introduced, Google Glass captured the imagination of the entire world.
This gadget was one of the most futuristic, Google had come up with. But, it
took quite some years for this Glass to be realistically used. Recently, Google
Glass has been mentioned in the news with yet more great uses. It is believed
that California based Drchrono is about to come up with
an application that will make EMR
available of the Google Glass. In other words, the doctors will be able to sift
through the reports, wearing their Google Glass, and hence will be able to
perform their tasks faster. This EMR application
on Google Glass will invariably change the face of the
healthcare industry and its practice methods.

Why EMR on Google Glass is exciting prospect

Being able to
have Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records on Google Glass
can be revolutionary for the healthcare sector. This would literally be like
wearing one’s health records. At the present times, in order t get a summary of
the medical tests, health records, diagnosis etc of a patient, the doctor has
to sift through either hard copy of the record documents or the soft copies
accessible on his computer. The time spent in going through reports like this
can be saved by using the Google Glass.

So how does Google Glass EMR revolutionize the
medical way of work? Well, if all the records start appearing on the Google
Glass of the doctor, then he would
not have to repeatedly go back to the documents to consult, while carrying on
the treatment. Even while doing surgery, he can simply access all the required
information on the Google Glass and this gives him a hands free mode of
operating which results in better results. The facility of having EMR or EHR on Google Glass simply makes it
convenient and accelerates the entire treatment process. No wonder, the
announcement of such application was met with so much interest.

Is the
application available widely?

This
application, being created by Drchrono is still under trials and errors. It is
not available for mass use. Till date, only a limited number of pieces have
been created and given out for free to doctors. In other words, the application
is still under testing and further developments. It is still not available
widely in the market. Devices like Google Glass are still pretty new on the
market, and consumers will take a while to get used to the idea of it. The
Google Glass is still undergoing plenty of experimentations. It is expected
though, that soon enough, with a good collection of compatible and useful
applications, this Glass will soon become a part of one’s daily lifestyle –
just like smartphones and iPads today have.

Just a matter
of time

This
announcement made by Drchrono is one of the few that will come up over the
years. As a gadget, Google Glass is truly expected to meet high benchmarks of
performance and utility.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

The use and need of EMR
software check over here are reaching a new height of demand with time. Using software for
recording and accessing all patient data has made medical data recording
technology much swifter and faster. However, though there has been lot of
advancement and worldwide usage of the software, it is still facing some
pitfalls. While working on such software, a medical practitioner has to have
face real time issues. A major one among many such fall backs is the dominance
of drop down menus to segregate various diseases, symptoms, categories etc.
Though meant to simplify and centralize the recording method, the same drop
down menu many a times fail to meet the real time issues and need.

Why Drop Down Menu in
EMR software?

Categorizes all the syndromes, symptoms, diseases in an organized way

Makes work easier for a practitioner who just needs to select a appropriate category for his patient

Saves time by escaping free typing with pre-listed categorical divisions

It is easy to handle

Facilitates the data entry procedure to a great extent

However at the same time this drop down menu can also be
problematic. Since a practitioner needs to select a suitable and appropriate
symptom of his patient from the hundreds of listed symptoms, it might not
always fulfill the requirement. This is when the problem arises leading to
further complications.

Sort of issues with
drop down menus

Like for example if a patient complains about high pressure
in his first visit, the doctor selects high pressure from the drop down list of
EMR software and records the treatment
records of the patient and more information on drop-down menus of so-called best practices at nytimes.com. At the next visit the patient might not even have a
complaint about high pressure; he might have complaint of breathlessness.
However the patient ultimately meets a cardiac attack and the cardiologist is
sued for not being able to treat him properly.

A common error that might occur with drop down menu is that
while selecting the preferable category from a huge list of hundreds of
category a practitioner may accidentally select a medication below or above the
exact one. This kind of accidental click might lead to potential disasters
later on. Moreover, accidental or mistaken information once fed to EHR or EMR softwaresustains and circulates
leading to potential errors in future.

How can one prevent
such errors?·One must attempt to select the most appropriate
category while selecting from the drop down list·Practitioners can invest more attention on free
typing and keeping detailed note of patients symptoms and condition from second
visit onwards·Practitioners should communicate with the
service providers immediately after finding out any pit fall in the EMR
software

Though there might be some pitfalls with drop down lists,
one cannot omit the advantages it offers at the same time. Therefore these kinds
of pitfalls can be tackled with particular development on the issues and by
taking cautious steps to prevent any potential error while handling the
software by healthcare workers.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The healthcare segment is witnessing latest technological improvements with each new day. Managing and accessing healthcare or medical data through electronic source has long been is real practice. However, technology has not stopped there. There have been lots of technical advancements with applications, update procedures, improvement from web based servers to cloud based servers etc. Among various EMR software open source electronic medical records applications OpenEMR is a popular one.

A glimpse at OpenEMR

OpenEMR is an open source and free medical practice management application. This application also provides comprehensive support to Electronic medical Records (EMR). The application is compatible to run MAC OS X, Windows, Linux and other popular platforms. With a completely in built EMR softwaresystem integrated with the application this medical management application can be used extensively for other miscellaneous purposes like electronic billing and scheduling. This application is used broadly in the medical platform since it quite extensively featured besides being ONC Complete Ambulatory EHR certified.

The application is backed up with continuous efforts of globalization as well as localization in different languages. Therefore making it available in multiple languages will increase the use and demand for the application to a great extent. Besides that support for the application can be fetched from various forums, absolutely free.

Records about the popularity of OpenEMR

The recent news release published by OpenEMR unveiled the popularity and demand of this open source electronic media records or EMR software. The news release revealed the number of downloads and patients who are being influenced by the systems. The figures revealed in a study in 2012 are overwhelming. Apart from 198,042 downloads from a particular application downloading site SourceForge. Apart from this, there were more that 210,000 download recorded from other sources within USA itself. However, according to OEMR their survey reveal that only 35% of their users are from US. According to conservative opinion more than 45,000 practitioners treating and interacting with almost 90 million patients are using this application. At the same time Dr Bowen disagrees with the opinion from the conservatives and says that the count may be almost double in reality with almost 100,000 practitioners and 200 million patients who directly and indirectly using the application.

Chances of OpenEMR survival

According to the survey details there are millions of beneficiary of the OpenEMR application. Though the user figure may be relatively smaller compared to other EMR software, the user count directs to a bright and prospective future of the OpenEMR system. It is true that it might lack of members in OpenEMR community but the numbers may definitely increase with the increase of user globally.

Therefore it can be expected that in future with more usage and development in OpenEMR there will be a more potential market for the application. This EMR softwarewill also witness more advancements and technical developments which will again attract more interested users across the globe. Already many practitioners are using the application efficiently and many patients are being benefited with the application and we can hope that the numbers will increase with time.